One German machine-gun got to work on
them. It was knocked out by a bomb flung by an officer who saved his
company. The machine--gunners were bayoneted. Elsewhere there was
chaos out of which living men came, shaking and moaning.
I saw the Royal Fusiliers and Northumberland Fusiliers come back from
this exploit, exhausted, caked from head to foot in wet clay. Their
steel helmets were covered with sand-bagging, their trench-waders,
their rifles, and smoke helmets were all plastered by wet, white
earth, and they looked a ragged regiment of scarecrows gathered from
the fields of France. Some of them had shawls tied about their
helmets, and some of them wore the shiny black helmets of the Jaeger
Regiment and the gray coats of German soldiers. They had had luck.
They had not left many comrades behind, and they had come out with
life to the good world. Tired as they were, they came along as though
to carnival. They had proved their courage through an ugly job. They
had done "damn well," as one of them remarked; and they were out of
the shell-fire which ravaged the ground they had taken, where other
men lay.
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